Abstract The research works and approaches of leisure philosophy in countries such as the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom have greatly influenced the Chinese research on leisure philosophy, which views the leisure philosophy as a reflection on leisure from a philosophical perspective. However, this approach has largely limited the development of leisure philosophy in China. Among the four main streams of thought exploring leisure in France, Germany and Italy, leisure has been considered as the main driving force for reflecting on traditional Western philosophy and breaking through the inherent dilemmas of contemporary Western philosophy, such as breaking through the technical and distributional governance of the systematic bio-politics, breaking through intellectual, political and affective biases against laborers, and breaking through the temporality of traditional daily life. This can fundamentally stimulate the potential of Chinese leisure philosophy research.
Based on different orientations of leisure philosophy, this article provides a basic framework for defining different types of leisure philosophy and their basic research methods and contents by determining the intersection between the perspective adopted when understanding the relationship between leisure and philosophy and the dimension of inquiry into leisure, in order to provide a common ground for a dialogue for different types of philosophies of leisure. At the same time, this dialogue also relies on a rigorous etymological interpretation of the concept of “leisure”. Based on Heidegger’s “thought-language” integrated etymological method, this article conducts a holistic and historical examination on the meaning and evolution of “leisure” in the Indo-European languages, thus showing that both the Anglo-Saxon ?metta meaning of “spare time” and the meaning of “spare time” introduced by Boyer fundamentally define the basic meaning of modern English leisure as “spare time”. At this point, there are fundamental differences between leisure in modern english and σχολ? in ancient Greek, licet and its infinitive licēre in Latin, and loisir/loysir/leisir in old French: the basic meaning of the former is “spare time”, and the basic meaning of the latter is “be permitted”. That is to say, due to the errors of French lexicographer, leisure as “be permitted” in ancient Greek, Latin, and old French was replaced by leisure as “spare time” in modern English, leading to a disjunction in meaning and concept between modern leisure and ancient leisure. In ancient philosophy, leisure does not belong to the organic components of daily life, but rather referred to the interruption of daily life. More precisely, it was a sacred space that “permitted” the participants to obtain superior experience and divine tranquility. In this sense, leisure is “outside” work, labor and intervals. Currently, the way of bridging the gap lies in restoring its meaning of “be permitted” and its complete etymological genealogy, thus eliminating the exclusive right to interpret leisure in the sense of free time, recreation, idleness or laziness.
In addition to the etymological interpretation, this article examines Heidegger’s understanding of the concept of leisure: in his early thoughts, leisure was understood as lingering in pure contemplation; in his later thoughts, leisure was understood as the permission of “lassen” and “Gelassenheit”, that is, “zulassen-lassen” and “zulassen-Gelassenheit”. In this sense, only when leisure is understood as “being permitted”, that is, not only having its etymological necessity but also its philosophical basis, can all beings be themselves. From a practical point of view, leisure as “being permitted” will break away from the temporal dependence on spare time, thus completing a breakthrough in the technological worldview with “acceleration” as its main symptom.
Furthermore, this article presents a framework for defining different types of leisure philosophy, which is not limited to an interpretation of the concept of “leisure” in the Indo-European language family. Moreover, this framework can propose new types of leisure philosophy by pairing perspectives and dimensions, thus breaking through the limitations of Western disciplinary and academic discourse systems.
Liu Huimei Zhou Yu. From Leisure to Leisure Philosophy: A Leisure Philosophy from the Perspective of Western Etymology of “Leisure”[J]. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 0, (): 1-.
